While there are several types of situations where it is legitimately helpful, Kickstarter is and always has been primarily a way for business endeavors to shift all of their financial risks onto the end consumer. And it appeals by making you feel like you're either investing (which you're not, because you don't get any rights over the company/product or return on your investment except--hopefully--the end product) or supporting a cause (which you're also not; it's a business venture, not a charitable organization).

And uses like this one are even worse.

While I kind of understand this tactic in this one very specific instance--it's a very expensive undertaking with a dedicated but niche fanbase, which has a history of not being a good investment--what campaigns with this sort of structure are essentially doing is using their regular-schmoe end customers to test the waters and take all the financial risk to prove to their more wealthy benefactors--the REAL investors--that it is a safe investment. That's all kinds of disgusting.

Since this got so much money so quickly, and since it is just a proof-of-viability study for Sony, they really should offer to return all the pledges that are less than enough to get a copy of the game. (I'd say the same thing about people who gave in excess, but I honestly don't know how you'd go about the nightmare task of coordinating that.)

I view it simply as pre-ordering... and if paying 300$ will have Yu Suzuki sign the copy then I can live with the expenditure. Off course, if Shenmue 3 is successful my physical copy will be worthless however if the game fails commercially it might be worth something. Overall this is a waste of money that I am fine indulging with.

There have been many questions concerning Shenmue 3’s budget and what outside sources will be added to the money collected through Kickstarter. I apologize for not having been more forthright in this area and would like to take this opportunity to help clarify the situation.

Ys Net and I have been putting in many long years trying to find a way to bring back a sequel that so many fans have waited so long for. After learning of Kickstarter, I knew it would be possible to get Shenmue 3 started. Wanting to make the best game possible, I also knew that I would have to look to more traditional means to obtain all the funds that would be needed to create the game I had envisioned.

Sony and Shibuya Productions have been wonderful partners because they believe in Shenmue and want to see the best for the fans and the game. Their investment in (and support of) Shenmue have helped to realize a sequel that will stand proud with its predecessors. While it is not business practice to discuss the specific details of such arrangements, I can say that with their assistance on the production and marketing end, and in Sony’s case with some publishing support as well, Ys Net is able to use more of the money we collect through Kickstarter purely for Shenmue 3’s development. It is also important to note that your funds are going strictly to Ys Net for development of Shenmue 3 – Sony and Shibuya Productions are not seeing a cent of your Kickstarter dollars.

The outpouring of support from all of you, the backers, has been so inspirational. I cannot thank you enough. Having reached our funding goal, I am excited to say that the Shenmue story will go on, and our journey with Ryo and Shenhua will continue. Fans will be able to enjoy the sequel they have waited so long for, and newcomers to the series will be introduced to a unique gaming experience.
Of course, like with any Kickstarter, additional funding will only help us make a better game. On top of everything Shenmue 3 will already bring, the Stretch Goals that I have laid out will add extra quests, events, and new gameplay systems that will make the game even more immersive and take the series to the next level. At the $5 million mark, there will be an all new gameplay feature I would be excited to be able to add to the Shenmue legacy. If we should make the $10 million Stretch Goal, a much larger, completely open world will be yours to explore.

Even if these Stretch Goals are not reached, Shenmue 3 will already be a sequel true to its name, and one we can all be proud of. It is my hope though, that together we can make this Shenmue just as revolutionary as the first two were.

I understand this statement may by late in coming. Going forward, we wish to be as open as possible concerning the game’s development. I would like to again ask for your cooperation and support in helping make Shenmue 3 the best that it can be.

The slightly weird thing about all of this for me is how nobody's mentioned Sega anywhere. Has Sony's part of the deal been to pay Sega off, or will Sega be taking a cut of profits? Just seems a weird forgotten detail that this is Sega's IP.

Well, this is infuriating, now after 4 years of waiting for a game we crowdfunded, after knowing it would be on Steam all that time, they've removed the game from Steam and made it an Epic Games Store exclusive. Basically, after crowdfunding a game that was thought maybe not possible, they screwed over their backers by taking a payment from Epic to force us to install Epic malware on our computers to get the game we paid for and supported.

They have already confirmed that if you purchased the physical copy (as I did) that you'll be getting an Epic Games Store code in a box in the mail.

They are already mass-copypasta'ing to backers that they will not be giving refunds for this decision.

To make matters worse, the Shenmue III website confirms that Shenmue III will be coming to Steam "at a later date," so as a day 1 backer I'm basically I'm forced to deal with this EGS bullshit if I want to play it on PC or wait months to years to play on PC.

There's basically a mass uprising on the Kickstarter page with thousands of comments by loyal Shenmue backing fans upset and trying to get refunds or reporting them to Kickstarter.

I won't be installing the Epic Games spyware launcher on my computer so I guess I will try to change platforms to PS4 and sell it sealed at a loss when it comes in. The last thing I ever wanted to do was pirate Shenmue III but after this slap in the face I don't care anymore. I hope the story wraps up nicely because it looks like trying to get funding for a Shenmue IV will be a disaster.

As for Shenmue III, for those not paying attention, they offered some options to PC backers:
1. You can switch to PS4
2. You can get it on Epic Games at launch and when it comes out on Steam a year later, you'll have it there too
3. You can get a refund

They have confirmed that physical PC copies will be a code and a disc with zero game content, just a copy of the Epic Games store installer. Prior to the Epic Games exclusivity deal, they were pretty adamant about how they were definitely going to include the game itself on the physical disc.

I still don't know what my choice will be.
I'd love a nice physical copy that can go on a shelf next to Shenmue I and Shenmue II. I backed the Kickstarter on day 1 and on day 1 the only physical option was PC, the PS4 version was going to be digital download only. Thus I felt the PC version was going to be the 'main' real version. But now I'm not sure, maybe I should just switch to the PS4 version now.

But, I have Shenmue I&II for Steam, so that makes me want to have Shenmue III in there too, in which case I feel I should just have it on Epic Games (i.e. own a legit license and pirate the game) until Steam version is released.

Or I could just say fuck all of it and get my refund. Supposedly Epic Games agreed to pay for all of the refunds, so this would directly impact them and I can take my money and buy it through Steam in a year and really vote with my dollar.

I ended up taking the refund. After telling us we could get a refund or choose to wait a year for a Steam key, they announced that that might not even happen. So they basically gave us a barely tolerable option as an apology, waited weeks for the anger to settle down, and then said basically "psyche!" to their apology.

Please note the following revision concerning PC option availability.
In the previous Update On PC Version Rewards, the following option for the PC (Epic Games Store) version was announced:
"If selecting either the PC Physical or PC Digital version, an option to also receive a Steam key one year later will be available."
As negotiations with Valve are ongoing, we are not able to make a firm commitment at this point concerning the availability of the Steam keys.
Requests for Steam keys will be accepted through the survey, however, there is the possibility that Steam keys will ultimately not be distributed depending on negotiations with Valve. An announcement will be posted in the updates with the outcome of the negotiations.
We apologize for this revision to the previously stated PC option.

So, twice they have promised us it will be on Steam and pulled it from Steam. We were promised a physical PC distribution with the game content on disc, now we're told it's just going to be an Epic Games Installer on disc. Meanwhile they've been busy cooking up a bunch of really awesome exclusive content for various distribution channels including an awesome Dreamcast case I'd love to have, but day-1 Kickstarter backers have no access to other than buying multiple copies of the game. They blatantly lied about KS backers getting first access to the playable build, instead E3 attendees casually played with early S3 builds while backers sat at home with nothing in hand.

the Kickstarter backers are now receiving their copies for PS4, and the "exclusive Kickstarter case" is just a piece of cardboard paper that goes around the regular normal cheap version case. What a load of shit lol
One last "look how big of suckers you all were" punch from this debacle.

You guys tried the demo? It's not that good. Yet, it's still very much Shenmue.

I knew the game was going to have its fair share of problems, but they clearly tried to keep it two decades in the past. The awful voice acting and clunky controls are so spot-on I can only assume they did it deliberately, which is crazy to me. Nothing wrong with going for a nostalgic vibe but I thought they would have taken the opportunity to improve on what came before.

@Darc: Why didn't you just go for PS4? Given that this is a console website. I assumed you were a console gamer. I am honestly surprised that so many PC gamers cared for Shenmue given it was never released on PC.

Yes the sleeve was really disappointing because they basically just printed the mockup.

For me personally, I was looking forward for the T-Shirt, which had a cool mock up but they actually went ahead and made a new design which I found inferior to the mockup. It doesn't really matter cause none of the rewards are delivered and now with Covid-19 who knows how long it would take. The silver lining Suzuki realizes the KS was an F'up. He knows a lot of fans were hurt, but the deep silver publishing deal took away executive distribution control from him.

On an unrelated note. <b>I want to talk Shenmue 2.</b>

You see I played Shenmue 2 for the first time this year.

It had aged a lot and I made a terrible decision by not playing it back when I purchased it. I wanted to wait for Shenmue 3 to be locked firmly before playing Shenmue 2. I was content with Shenmue 1's ending and I didn't want a rough cliff hanger to drive me crazy. Surprisingly, the ending of Shenmue 2 was really satisfying. Just like Shenmue 1 it makes me want to play the game again rather than jump into the sequel.

Shenmue 2 Disc 4 aka Epilogue is an entire experience unlike any game I've played. Going more on a tangent but I was really afraid to playing Shenmue 2 as a 32 year old. Back in the day I used to look up to Ryo. Now he's a kid compared to me, I figured I knew a lot more than him or the people he would meet. The epilogue was an educational surprise. In fact Ryo's whole journey is still amazing to experience.

I just wish the epilogue had traditional platforming gameplay instead of QTE's.

I would probably want to play Shenmue 2. At least once or twice before jumping into Shenmue 3. I am in no rush for Shenmue 4.

<b>Now I want to talk voice acting</b>

More of a tangent, is it just me or Shenmue 2's english dub is definitely inferior to Shenmue 1's.
Shen Hua's actress alone is significantly inferior to the original. Fortunately, the writing is powerful enough to survive the actress. Just like Mark's story in Shenmue 1.

On the PS4 version I flipped the Japanese dub for Shenmue 1 and did not find it much better than the English. I also watched Shenmue: The Movie decades ago in Japanese and thought the same thing then. However, I feel the voice acting for the sequel is on point. The cast really delivered an immersive performance in Shenmue 2, where as the English acting was atrocious. I do not ascribe to the, it is so bad it is good school of thought. Bad voice acting is bad.

@Darc: Why didn't you just go for PS4? Given that this is a console website. I assumed you were a console gamer. I am honestly surprised that so many PC gamers cared for Shenmue given it was never released on PC.

I play retro consoles (on the real consoles, not emulators), and I haven't really cared about console gaming outside of Nintendo since the OG Xbox days. I own a 360/Xbone but I own like 2 games between them and I've had them powered on for barely a few hours. I just can't care. I didn't get a PS2 until like 2010 and we only have a PS3 and PS4 in this house because my girlfriend owns them but I've literally never played either of them.

Meanwhile I went nuts on my last PC build and have a ridiculous watercooled desktop with a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti card (basically just the CPU and GPU are top of the line and alone cost $2000), I can play Shenmue III at ultra quality settings at 4K with a silky smooth framerate.

Xbox/Sony consoles are just inferior devices trying to be PCs. I have no interest in messing around with an inferior device for gaming when so many great franchises that were originally console-based are now available on PC and I don't have to worry about the game purchase being tied to an obsolete platform in a few years because PC games are basically forever. The only reason to own a console that I can see is for exclusive franchises, but I have so many other games in my backlog to play that I don't really bother with that.

Nintendo's stuff still tries to be fun toys, and I still love that shit. The Switch has been a fantastic console and even though the Wii U was a failure I still bought a lot of games for it and put a lot of time into that console. And of course the Wii was such a unique device when it came out.

Not to mention when Shenmue III was announced, there wasn't going to be a physical PS4 copy, so that led to the belief that the PC version (which was always going to get a physical release) was the 'default' or 'canonical' version.

Xbox/Sony consoles are just inferior devices trying to be PCs. I have no interest in messing around with an inferior device for gaming when so many great franchises that were originally console-based are now available on PC

I can just never have this mindset. I'd always prefer to take the inferior version and save some money. Even if you gave me £2k cash right now, I'd just rather spend it on something else than a maxed out gaming PC. I knows yours is an extreme example and you can pay a lot less, but I bought my Xbox One for £99 off eBay and I've got just as much out of it as I would have with a modern gaming PC sooo you'll never convince me otherwise.

...Having said that I think all the games I've put most time into I've played on PC.

Final Fantasy Xi...Final Fantasy XIV...WoW...and now I'm hooked on Valorant which is the first shooter I've ever loved. I'm finally growing up awww.